Feuerland

The real Great Escape didn't feature Steve McQueen racing through the Third Reich on a motorcycle like in the 1963 movie, but the big breakout was still thrilling in every way. This program sheds new light on the audacious escape of 76 Allied airmen from a Nazi POW camp during World War II.

The trembling starts in his neck when Markus gets closer to the images that have chased him for 49 years. Now he steers his motor home south, as far away from his past as possible.

The story of Florida gymnast Daiana Casella, who, along with her family and teacher, overcame the obstacles that Down syndrome could put in her way. In addition to her training and preparation for future competitions, Daiana works as an artistic gymnastics teacher for a large number of children with whom she maintains a very special relationship. During the making of the film, Daiana is training for the Berlin 2023 Special Olympics, an event that will conclude her athletic career at the Olympic and world levels.

In today's climate debate, there is only one factor that cannot be calculated in climate models - humans. How can we nevertheless understand our role in the climate system and manage the crisis? Climate change is a complex global problem. Increasingly extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and more difficult living conditions - including for us humans - are already the order of the day. Global society has never faced such a complex challenge. For young people in particular, the frightening climate scenarios will be a reality in the future. For the global south, it is already today. To overcome this crisis, different perspectives are needed. "THE UNPREDICTABLE FACTOR" goes back to the origins of the German environmental movement, accompanies today's activists in the Rhineland in their fight against the coal industry and gives a voice to scientists from climate research, ethnology and psychology.

A documentation about the reconstruction and destruction of german cities after the 2nd World War.

A portrait of Rosa von Praunheim's neighbor, who worked for decades as a professional dominatrix in Berlin's Wilmersdorf district. While the real Lady MacLaine reflects authentically and wittily on her life and work, her life is retold in dramatized scenes.

For the first time in six years, Barbara Morgenstern, pioneer of German-style electronic intimate pop, works on a new album. Her laptop sits on a shoebox, in the privacy of her home she finds first lines and harmonies: “I like to be alone,” one song begins. One by one, musicians join her. Intuitive ideas take shape. A window has opened. Arrangements, rehearsals, recordings follow. Step by step, the music enters public space, images are produced, videos, narratives. Questions arise: New beginning or back to the roots? New Biedermeier or tough political comment? The bigger the band, the riskier the booking. The more crisis-ridden the environment, the more comforting the music-making.

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

Documentary about filmmakers of the New German Cinema who were members of the legendary Filmverlag für Autoren (Film Publishing House for Authors). Among them are Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wim Wenders.

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

Documentary examines the history and evolution of the Olympic Games, taking a close look at the Olympic charter, oath and ideals. Also featured are rare home movies and interviews with Olympic athletes and the oldest known color footage of the Olympic Games from Berlin in 1936.

The army of the GDR, called NVA had not survived the reunification of Germany, it was completely absorbed by the Bundeswehr and scrapped subsequently. But what apparently went on so smoothly as a peaceful unification of hostile brothers quietly left deep scars in the East German landscape.

A year has passed since the attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, and it is still unclear what actually happened at the bottom of the Baltic Sea at that time. ARD, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and DIE ZEIT have joined forces for a large-scale investigation and set out to find the alleged perpetrators. An investigation into one of the most spectacular criminal cases of our time, an attack of historic proportions.

The documentary deals with the subject of "big city noise" in a humorous and satirical, but also serious way, using the example of East Berlin, whereby the main focus is on noise that disturbs peace and quiet, i.e. noise that can be avoided, such as recklessly listening to loud music and watching television, clearly audible inner-family communication, dogs barking, nocturnal DIY work, rapid braking and honking of vehicle horns, etc. With the help of animations/animated scenes, the film vividly demonstrates the widespread interpersonal bad habits.

Two queer Brazilians go skinny dipping in a lake where they talk about love, sex, colonialism and migration, on a pandemic summer afternoon in Berlin.

A film about three teenagers - Klara, Mina and Tanutscha - from the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. The trio have known each other since Kindergarten and have plenty in common. The three 15-year-olds are the best of friends; they are spending the summer at Prinzenbad, a large open-air swimming pool at the heart of the district where they live. They're feeling pretty grown up, and are convinced they've now left their childhood behind.

A Neukölln family of choice is pursuing its vision of creating a magical cultural and community garden above the rooftops of Berlin: the Klunkerkranich.

In World War II. African-American GIs liberate Germany from Nazi rule while racism prevailed in their own army and home country. Returning home they continue fighting for their own rights in the civil rights movement.

A documentary of the German national soccer team’s 2006 World Cup experience that changed the face of modern Germany.

How did Nazi Germany, from limited natural resources, mass unemployment, little money and a damaged industry, manage to unfurl the cataclysm of World War Two and come to occupy a large part of the European continent? Based on recent historical works of and interviews with Adam Tooze, Richard Overy, Frank Bajohr and Marie-Bénédicte Vincent, and drawing on rare archival material.